Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion (Messiah)

Handel set Charles Jennens's compilation of scripture between 22 August and 14 September 1741 — twenty-four days. The first performance was not in London but in Dublin, at the New Music Hall in Fishamble Street on 13 April 1742, a charity benefit for a debtors' prison, an infirmary and Mercer's Hospital; the organisers asked ladies to come without hoops so that more could be seated. London was slower to accept a sacred text sung in a theatre. Handel altered the vocal distribution for almost every revival, and the version he gave at the Foundling Hospital in his last years became the reference text.